Are compact cities always more productive? The case of Mexico, with Paavo Monkkonen

It has become common sense to assert that compact cities are better, among other things because agglomeration economies make them more productive. However, what if this apparently universal rule doesn’t always apply? In today’s episode, cohost David Lopez García and I talk to Prof. Paavo Monkkonen about an article he co-authored titled Compact cities and economic productivity in Mexico. We talk to Paavo about why Mexico’s economic structure and land-use needs mean that agglomeration economies don’t behave in the same way in Mexican cities as they do in the global north, and how this impacts the relationship between density and productivity. It was a great conversation, and incredibly timely as we try to figure out a post-pandemic future

Paavo Monkkonen is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, director of the Latin American Cities Initiative and Faculty Cluster Leader for the Global Public Affairs Initiative. He researches and writes on the ways policies and markets shape urbanization and social segregation in cities around the world.

David López-García is a Visiting Lecturer in the Urban Studies Department at Queens College-CUNY and at the Observatory on Latin America (OLA) at The New School. He is also external faculty in the Doctoral Program in Urbanism at the University of Guadalajara. Broadly speaking, his research spans urban political economy, urban structure, urban accessibility, distributional effects of transport and land-use policies, and institutional arrangements for urban governance.